My Little Slice of Hell

hey, i just wanted to ask a few things:

1. is there any lab that will cross-process negative film?
2. Does anyone have any samples of how slide film looks like NOT cross-processed? And any almost any lab will do it, right?

Thanks! and sorry if I sound like a no0b - I'm trying out slide film for the first time, and was thinking about processing it normally, just to compare with the cross-processed photos i normally see.

Let's say -- just hypothetically -- that I'd been pondering for several months what a new novel should be about, because I want to keep writing these things, now I've started. And let's say -- entirely speculatively -- that I'd actually refined and defined a slew of "signature specifications" to the extent that I was able to start writing the new book, suddenly, last week. Let's call it The Book of Pim, but let's say absolutely nothing about it at this stage, because it's not my business to tell or yours to know, at this point, what this notional book will say or do. Let's just say one thing, though: that although the book is set in a far-off People's Republic whose real world cognate I've never been to, Manchester (a city I've only been to once) figures in it. Not the real Manchester, but the city I built in my imagination while listening to the records of Joy Division, Magazine, The Fall and The Passage. Let's watch an information film:



The man delivering this lecture about Manchester, The Fall and Mark E. Smith at an academic conference at the University of Salford is Dick Witts, an academic at the University of Edinburgh. He begins his lecture with a brilliant deconstruction of a BBC4 documentary about Manchester -- a film good in its way, but also typical of the reductive, revisionist and tediously "iconic" way such history gets reduced to successes, soundbites and the same old talking heads. Witts lists the 35 individual shots the documentary uses to establish its vision of Manchester in 1977, sourcing them in documentaries from 1946, 1955, 1967 and 1978, often as much about Salford and Ordsall as Manchester itself, and as much about urban regeneration as the urban decay it's intended to convey. Only 10% of the visual material intended to evoke the seventies, Witts shows, actually comes from the decade.



Witts then goes on to set the scene much better than the Factory documentary, showing a transition in 70s Manchester from Modernist glass-concrete-and-steel redevelopment to Postmodernist restoration, pedestrianisation and heritage-orientation. He also displaces the cliché about the Sex Pistols gigs at the Lesser Free Trade Hall sparking Manchester post-punk, pointing out that the experimentation of Van der Graaf Generator, the "basic" rock of The Worst, and the radical localism of the folk scene also played their part.



The lecture continues without a single mention of Witts' own group The Passage. And it's at this point that I can reveal that The Passage is the only Manchester group I still listen to, and that the vision of the city conjured in Passage songs, especially the early ones, is what's informing the book I'm now -- hypothetically -- writing. Sure, sure, The Fall is an endlessly fascinating group, and Mark E. Smith is perhaps Britain's greatest living poet. But for me, personally, Dick Witts -- the modest, acute music lecturer at the podium -- is much more important and much more fascinating. I could write a book about why my book will contain echoes (transmuted to a far eastern People's Republic) of the dark, schematic Mancunian landscapes Witts' lyrics evoked across four Passage albums and several EPs and radio sessions. But for now I'll just write a couple of paragraphs.



The Manchester landscape of Passage songs is one of personal scenarios of love, hope and lust played out against a backdrop of politics noir, an environment poised between Blade Runner and The Threepenny Opera. This Manchester is presided over by "Mr Terror, Chief of Police", a Methodist police chief called Anderton whose motivations are religio-fascistic. Anderton is real, a policeman-puritan who claimed to take counsel directly from God and believed AIDS to be a punishment for the immorality of homosexuals. Anything that didn't contribute to Anderton's definition of "a good and useful life" was within his remit to quash. He may sound like the sacrificial Christian copper in The Wicker Man, but woe betide artists trying to pillory him in fiction: when David Britton portrayed Anderton as "Lord Horror" in a 1989 satirical graphic novel, the book was banned and Britton sent to prison for several months.



Anderton in Passage songs is described in Old Testament terms as a layer of "snares" and "traps". He plays a similar role -- authoritarian hate figure -- as The Dictator Hall plays in my own first album, The Happy Family's The Man on Your Street. Over music sinister, twinkling, thunderous, complex, modular and modern -- music which, like an operetta, keeps sweeping the same motifs into new combinations and contexts -- a series of schematic terms define life: FEAR POWER LOVE, the transition from midnight to a new dawn, fire and ice, bodies and minds, drugs illegal-forbidden and legal-compulsory, seconds, hours and days, the provinces and, beyond them, the chilly, distant capital LON DON, almost Chinese in its distant, imperial brutality.



The Passage website and above all the LTM re-releases might give you a glimpse of why this band, this man, wunderbar, ich glaube, n'est-ce pas? continue to mean so much to me. They took subversion and avant garde experimentation further than anyone else in the early 80s, and Dick Witts was simply more intelligent than any other British songwriter at the time, his wordplay more serious and more witty, his politics more radical and advanced. It's not particularly surprising that BBC documentaries (even BBC4 documentaries) gloss over The Passage, and not particularly surprising that Witts himself tends to as well. But important parts of my imagination got lit up by Witts' vision the way other people (including Witts himself) were illuminated by Morrissey or Mark E Smith, and I have a feeling that those parts are now flexing and stretching and, one day soon, will see the dawn.

приглашается модель на занятие по студийной съемке в рамках "Студийного старта".
с модели - явка к обозначенному времени (19 ноября, к 20:00) в обозначенное место (студия МотоАрт, Тихвинский пер., 10/12к9), принесение с собой себя и всего необходимого для себяфотографирования.
с нас - жадные до пофотографировать в студии (и уже даже обученные этому нелегкому делу) фотографы, в последствии - фотографии с сессии, бЭзвозмездно.
внимание - нужна ДЕВУШКА. вписаться можно в комментариях. если мы с вами лично не знакомы - пришпильте к комментарию фотокарточку, наиболее соответствующую вашему нынешнему внешнему виду.

I want to become something big someday. Someone who will be remembered for what I've done.

A new decade is a time in which to declare "everything you know is wrong". A fresh decade is a time to jettison secure old knowledge and grope around for new. Since a new decade is just around the corner, let's start groping now.

Forget the places you've been going on holiday, and go on holiday instead to Beirut.

Do not expect to learn about the world through journalists.

Any Obama backlash will simply help usher in someone worse. Skip it.

Your mother holds a key piece of information, essential to your happiness. All you have to do is ask her the right question.

Blogs you check habitually are the wrong ones because they tell you nothing new. Try switching to Letters of Note, correspondence deserving of a wider audience. Certainly, the letters collected here are from the past. But they very readily suggest parallel futures -- for instance, a future in which Andy Warhol isn't famous.

You've been trained to talk about "sexualisation" without paying due attention to the fact that God and Freud (possibly the same person, long grey beard, knows everything) made us sexual from birth.

The everyday contains everything you need for a religion.

Stop expecting new musician Y to be "the new musician X". And stop expecting old musician X to be the new musician X.

You have been underestimating the colour yellow.

Conspiracy theories waste your time. It's all a big conspiracy.

Your body will thank you for using a bicycle every day during the new decade. Using bicycles will become a condition of using computers successfully too: the correspondence between them will become clearer over time.

The teens are destined to be the decade in which we'll finally stop wearing jeans. It'll be a slow sputtering process, but why wait? Ban the jean from your wardrobe starting January 1st by this simple rule: each time you find yourself reaching for jeans, reach for hose instead.

You thought a new decade was a blank slate. It's not; it's a rebellion.

Drums are finished. Except for kettledrums and gongs.

You know too much about LA and not enough about Laos. On the internet and in "the real world" you're consistently looking in the wrong places for inspiration. Why is that? Partly it's because the things that could really change you make you scared.

This is the decade in which you will finally make the switch from quantity to value. One ramification: you will move from an expensive place where you have to do a lot of meaningless work just to exist to a cheap place where you can exist easily and can therefore afford to dedicate yourself to work that really means something to you.

The penny finally drops: people who drive cars just end up seeing a lot of roads.

You have not been eating enough mushrooms.

No computer game beats computer chess.

Your enemies are your best teachers.

Watch Indian TV.

No previous decades are to be revived this decade. Make a little more effort with the shapes of things, please.

Cognition, not recognition.

Pretend to be older than you are, not younger.

Everything you once fried, you will now begin to bake.

Read the Mahabarata, watch the 1988 TV series...



...or seek out the Peter Brook theatre production on DVD.

You will probably be happier amongst people who think as you do, but they might be located on the other side of the world.

You will probably be happier amongst people who think as you do, but you might have to make them with your body.

You will probably be happier amongst people who think as you do. They are hidden next door, but to befriend them you will have to learn a new language.

You will probably be happier amongst people who do not think as you do.

Nothing could be better than a market at 5am, but to experience it you will have to get up earlier and brave the cold.

Learn to make things with wood.

The person who perfects seawater desalination will become rich beyond the dreams of kings. Why not make that person you?

Everything you know is right, but that was then and this is now.

Wherever you plan to go, go next door instead.

Eat more fish, and breed more fish.

So the guy forgot to scan in some photos from the last roll, and did it for me for free! Enjoy :)

-BBF, no mask, Kodak Gold 200.

( +4 )

Moar picspams yay!


So as you've possibly gathered, I have embraced my inner camwhore as late. Here's what I rocked for Halloween. I was going to do a gothed out Dorothy, but it wasn't coming together so I went for a 60's femme fatale vibe. I did my hair myself Friday night (which would be the full-length pic) but went to the beauty school to get it did up proper for Saturday (above). Not for the first time, I found myself wishing I'd been alive in 1964.

As far as festivities, we had a potluck at work, where I made a crudités platter that I plied upon the next couple of parties I went to. I picked up that cute ceramic bat dish at Michael's for a buck, and the Mickey pumpkin is from guess where:


Friday night was a birthday party at sulphuroxide, which despite my being a boring loser and spending a nice portion of the evening reading an awesomely pulpy paperback of his, I had a grand time at:



After another party on Saturday (iknorite?), E and I struck out on Sunday in search of Dia de los Muertos festivities. I've gone out to a festival at a museum in Ventura for a few years, but the museum's apparently moved locations and they cut way back on the party. Fortunately we picked up a weekly and found out about another fete back closer to home. It was a gorgeous day so it was a nice drive, and I always love to see the ocean:



Eventually we wound our way to the cemetery where things were going on and could see evidence of it from the time we crossed the gates:



Like I said, it was a beautiful day. The grounds were lovely, overlooking a field of corn that was glowing in the sun, and surrounded by the mountains on the other sides.



I overheard the guy from this car club talking about how this was the first time they'd come out (this was only the second time this event was thrown) and how they'd be coming out next year. It's hard to see in my shot, but that lowrider's bumpin:



And speaking of cars, this is one of my favorite Dia de los Muertos traditions. I take it this truck previously belonged to a Mr. Gomez (see the driver's side door):





Now for the most important bit, the ofrendas! These are the shrines dedicated to people who've gone before. There are a lot of different ways of doing it, but some of the traditions include three tiers draped in white, photos, representations of the dead's favorite things, marigolds, copal incense and of course, skeletons!







I just adore all the creativity and love you can see reflected. That's Cesar Chavez above, and you can't forget about MJ:



All in all it's a very celebratory atmosphere. Note the playful kids on the way back from what must have been a nearby pumpkin patch:



Also check the mariachis!





The masked mariachi's forehead read "Tú y Yo" or "You and I".



Eventually people began gathering for a parade over the cemetery grounds, including Aztec dancers and people carrying big skeleton puppets.







I've been looking for a good Day of the Dead celebration somewhat closer to home and this was aces. It was a great time, and I will definitely plan to go again next year.

And speaking of closer to home, here's my own ofrenda!



I usually set something up every year, but thanks to the X-Entertainment Die-O-Rama Contest I had some extra fun with the project.



Basically the challenge was to create a spooky diorama within the confines of a shoebox, which I made into a little shrine to my grandparents. I'm fortunate enough to have only lost relatively few loved ones so far in my life, so I try to have some representation of everyone, though.



The Die-O-Rama was created out of a Coach shoebox, a set of Halloween lights, another couple of recycled boxes and an old t-shirt for the tiers, faux flowers and scrapbook supplies that I had on hand, some more that I bought and other keepsakes I had around. The photos, and the Frank Sinatra tape, came from Moms having finally recently given in to sorting through the belongings we inherited when my Grandma DeeDee died (made copies of the pics, of course).



I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely it came out, if I may say so. Got to bust out the hot glue got AND the power drill, so I was feeling pretty snazzy. It's particularly nice when it's lit up:



Thanks for looking. Love ya!

Well, I used a lot of the suggestions that came my way from that post the other day! I was pretty pleased with the turnout of readers for that question, I must admit. I guess it's because you hear a lot that people don't give a darn about history in this country, if depressing yearly polls from the Dominion Institute mean anything, but it's clearly not the case among my livejournal followers. You guys are great!

I had to do a general sweep that involved a good range of places, professions, backgrounds and time periods, so you know, not everyone's favorite author is going to be in there but I sure did like the range in suggestions. Looking at it now I wish I had someone from the NWT (not one! for shame) and New Brunswick. Stompin Tom is from New Brunswick but he's also sort of from everywhere.  I could have put the Irvings in there, I think they control history in NB as well as anything else.

I was all crazed out with strep throat while I did this, but listening to Radiolab shows and a burning passion for Canada I guess(?) kept me going.  You can find the image in today's National Post, along with an article about the Historica/Dominion merger! Interesting stuff.


( picture is under the cut because it's huge )


Here is the legend, the rows are sort of wonky but you'll figure it out:

Row One (bottom):
James Wolfe, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, David Suzuki, Louis-Joseph Papineau, John A. Macdonald, Terry Fox
Row Two
Emily Carr, Joseph Howe, Joey Smallwood, Robert Bartlett, Louis Riel, Joy Kogawa
Row Three
Marshall McLuhan, Samuel de Champlain, Marilyn Bell, Wayne Gretzky, Emily Murphy
Row Four
Rene Levesque, Sam Steele, Farley Mowat, L.M. Montgomery, Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Trail, John McCrae
Row Five
Pitikwahanapiwiyin (Poundmaker), Oscar Peterson, Rush, Pierre Berton
Row Six
Les Filles du Roi, Mary Pickford, Skookum Jim Mason
Row Seven
Charles Best, Frederick Banting, Pauline Johnson, Mordecai Richler, Tecumseh, Stompin’ Tom Connors
Row Eight
William Hall, Tommy Douglas, Marc Garneau, Roberta Bondar, Rosemary Brown, John Diefenbaker
Row Nine
Shanawdithit, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, David Thompson, William Shatner

Hasbro now owns the rights to Micronauts.

This comes at the end of a decades long, non-public trademark face-off between Takara, Tomy, Abrams Gentile Entertainment (formerly Mego), and other parties. Takara has pretty much owned one major part of the Micronauts trademark since the mid-eighties after Mego went bankrupt. However, AGE laid claim to other parts of the trademark that Takara failed to grab and contested their claim ever since. There were many periods of inactivity from one side or the other over the years where each was nearly ready to relaunch Micronauts, only to get held up again as the other side jumped back in and contested it again. Takara was very close to a major Micronauts launch in the late 1990's, but was forced to scale it back to a Microman-only release in Japan and Korea around 1999. A brief compromise was reached in 2001 that allowed for the Palisades and Devil's Due runs to come about, but it did not last long, and Takara made more moves to try to reclaim the series, continuing after their merger with Tomy shortly later, making a grab for all the other associated trademarks as well (Biotron, Baron Karza, Hornetroid, etc...). AGE fought back.

Then earlier this year, in Summer, something suddenly changed. TakaraTomy ceded the entire interest to AGE. And then, mere days after this was posted to the US Trademark Office, AGE turned around and ceded their entire interest, including the newly acquired trademarks from TakaraTomy (and all the associated ones) to an intellectual property broker called MIC Holdings.

It was clear that some kind of deal had been made, and either MIC was planning to sell to a new owner, or was already acting on behalf of an unknown third party, presumably a larger company. My own guess at the time was that it might be that Hasbro reached a deal with AGE through MIC, and TakaraTomy conceded to allow the trademarks to go to a single intermediary owner at Hasbro's discretion. Mattel had also apparently shown some interest earlier this year in the Micronauts property (at least as evidenced through a poll from their collectors' club), so it may have been a move in order to keep them from scooping it up instead. In any case, MIC also proceded to file for trademarks on just about every other imaginable use of the Micronauts label. No longer facing opposition, the trademarks sailed smoothly through the Trademark Office's red tape, and appeared clear to go just within the last few weeks or so, culminating in Hasbro's announcement at their investor meeting.

Interestingly, Micronauts' prior history with Takara as the original 1974 Microman series was apparently mentioned in the investor's meeting, although its connections with the Transformers property (other than Takara's prior partnership with Hasbro on that license), Mego and the Marvel comic were not. In fact, Micronauts appear to be deliberately equated with the original Microman toyline, as if both series have been one and the same all along. Already the story is being reported in Japan with "Microman" being substituted for "Micronauts" in most sentences.

The very same day, J.J. Abrams announced he is working on getting the movie rights from Hasbro. This information's timing seems a bit TOO convenient, and it seems plausible that it was intentionally timed to help stir interest in the otherwise previously mostly forgotten property (and perhaps overshadow the negative press from the Palisades/Devil's Due 2002 relaunch in the eyes of investors and the media) .

At the investment meeting, Hasbro listed the Micronauts brand as part of its overarching 2010 theme of "reimagining, reinventing, and reigniting" their brands, which they described as "Immersive Brand Experiences" which should each include the following goals: "Toy and Game Product Innovation," "Digital Gaming," "Entertainment Experiences," and "Lifestyle Licensing", with an eye at established, developing, and new global markets.

Now, based on what little is known so far, there are still a few things that we can probably safely surmise as being all but guaranteed. Please keep in mind though that all that follows is my own speculation and does not reflect any "inside information", press releases, announcements or other cold hard facts :

• The product line is likely in development by Hasbro with some form of support from TakaraTomy.
• The brand will likely include use of most Mego-owned names: Baron Karza, Space Glider, Hornetroid, etc. in order to both maintain the intellectual property as well as to spark recognition with those who remember the original series.
• The brand will also likely include a broad marketing approach including a web portal, games, a television series, toys, comics, and a variety of spin-off products.
• The brand will probably have an international release, particularly in markets where the name has recognition (Japan, Asia, Europe, South America, etc. along with the North American and British markets).

Next, we can also make some educated guesses. First, what is most probable:

• Magnemo toys. Mega Bloks has been doing quite well for itself pretty much owning the entire market share for fun magnetic interchangeable toys, and Bakugan also uses a magnetic gimmick. Microman's well researched and developed magnemo system (originally invented by Microman's own Iwakichi Ogawa) would make an incredible asset to Hasbro in grabbing its own piece of that market share.
• A mix of Japanese and US concepts to appeal in Asian and Western markets. The toyline should contain elements that will make it familiar to fans of both Microman and Micronauts without alienating either. The Acroyears will probably be set again as the main bad guys, but we will likely see them led by Baron Karza or such, for example. Changes will be made to Karza's design so he is not confused with Geag in Japan and Italy.
• An anime series or domestically created cartoon (2D or CG) is a must these days in order to market a new kid's brand. Possible studios they could approach to do this might include Gonzo (Sigma Six), Studio Pierrot (Microman), Sunrise (GaoGaiGar, but mostly tied to Bandai so less likely), Orphanage (Clone Wars), Cartoon Network (Transformers Animated), and Marvel among others.
• Other toy gimmicks such as transforming elements or electronics seem likely.
• Video games on various platforms seem a given as much as a cartoon.
• As Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, a collectible card game seems likely. Gotta interchange 'em all!
• 3 3/4 inch or 4 inch figures are probable, given Hasbro's own GI Joe series, Star Wars, and Marvel Universe. Also plausible is the hardy Magnepowers 3-inch format, which has the benefit of looking more apt for the "Micro" label.

Secondly, what seems somewhat likely or plausible, if not probable:

• 5mm or 3mm based interchangeability, as these were staples even for Transformers, and interchangeability is associated with the Micronauts brand image of the past. That said, though, we shouldn't count out the possibility of this being abandoned for some new gimmick or format or moving even strictly to magnetic parts.
• Similarly, a gimmick or such enabling and encouraging parts-swapping or a construction set-style theme seems likely for the same reason. Think of Stikfas, Xevos, Bionicle, Mega Bloks, Gormiti, and other successful brands in this category.
• Augmented Reality gimmicks seem to be the new buzz for brand new product lines, starting with the launch of the Avatar toys in particular. I expect most new toys will incorporate some form of AR gimmick or similar technology allowing internet/computer interactivity out of the box.
• A revival of Microman in Japan with new reproductions of toys beyond what has been done in prior runs by TakaraTomy (like the TF encore stuff).
• A repackaging of Micronauts in Japan through TomyTakara done more with chrome parts, etc. to appeal to the local collectors' market

Thirdly, what is possible, but less certain:

• A Marvel Comics tie-in (both ways--publishing the comic version, and characters incorporated into the toyline), Perhaps even the JJ Abrams movie released under the Marvel label?
• Larger figures--a five inch Micorman format has been rumored previously in Japan earlier this year.
• Smaller figures, a la Diaclone or MicroMachines, playing up the "Micro" theme. Less likely, but an approach I still personally find appealing.
• Some combination of multiple formats released (think of TMNT Mini-Mutants versus the main line).
• Anime styling or "Ameri-anime" styling (i.e. Teen Titans, TF Animated) or a more stylized western look such as in Clone Wars.
• 3D CG animation instead of 2D animation.
• Live action series rather than animated (i.e. Power Rangers)--not my preference, but plausible.
• Return of the Micronauts board game!
• Micronauts table role-playing game or miniature-based game. The toys could work as (full scale) miniatures in a game itself.

Lastly, what is highly unlikely:

• Chrome parts have been minimal or nixed entirely in Hasbro's recent line-ups due to safety concerns, apparently. Don't expect the new Micronauts to have the familiar chrome heads anymore, which probably are considered dated looking or too esoteric by marketing anyway (but we can still hope!).
• Tiny removable parts (choking hazards)
• Direct involvement by Michael Golden (see his prior interview at Innerspace Online) or other original Marvel staff.
• Microman 2004+ style figures in terms of fragility and small loose parts (see second point above).
• Involvement from AGE (different ownership now).
• Comic story from Devil's Due (ditto).
• Retro figure replicas (like Palisades or the Transformer anniversary toys) from Hasbro (maybe from Takara though).

It will be interesting to see how things develop and how much the real release will reflect what is being speculated on now. Here's hoping for the best (but let's keep our expectations low, just in case...)!

Here are three videos of Carousel rehearsals last month at Music Bank in the Tower Bridge Business Complex in which I sang through -- for the first time with real musicians -- three Jacques Brel songs arranged by David Coulter and Mike Smith, and translated by me (you can read my translations, two of which were made specially for this performance, beside the videos as they appear on YouTube). The band of twenty musicians (including Roger Eno on piano, Seb Rochford on drums, Leo Abrahams on guitar, Kate St Clair on oboe and Thomas Bloch on onde martinot) performed these songs with me at The Barbican on October 22nd and the Warwick Arts Centre the next day.


Don't Leave Me (Brel's Ne Me Quitte Pas)
(for comparison, watch the 1993 version of my version of this song, filmed in on my Christmas tour of Japan that year)


The Town Tumbled (Brel's La Ville S'Endormait)


Bourgeois Pigs (Brel's Les Bourgeois)


Finally, Jacky, filmed onstage at The Barbican at the end of the first concert.



I was particularly taken with Aberdonian drummer Seb Rochford (of Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland) and his extraordinary afro. Seb exudes a 70s countercultural cool as well as incredible percussive flair, and it was easy to believe Leo's tales of Brian Eno attending recording sessions with Seb, watching all his takes. Here he is doing his stuff:



As for Roger Eno (he crosses the picture at the beginning of the video for The Town Tumbled), the man does this footstomping thing while playing the piano, and grins like Elton John, and loves to laugh, joke and do crosswords. On the tour bus to Warwick I noticed that a lot of the stories he was telling sounded familiar: there was one about the Pepsi campaign that promised "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave", one about Picasso undermining representational image-making by asking a man who showed a photo of his wife "But is she really so small and flat?", one about art being a plane you can crash and walk away from, and one (at my request) about his dad the postman. Eventually the coin dropped. I'd heard some or all these tales from the same source he had: his big brother Brian. But Roger had heard them firsthand.

More to come, later

The nights are drawing in and the weather's crappy, so why don't you settle down in front of a crackling computer screen and direct your own frankly creepy text-to-movie movie? There are hours of fun to be had making wooden-looking 3D characters say rude things in bizarre settings. I know, I've tried it.

I discovered XtraNormal's text-to-movie site when Dr David Woodard sent me a short film he'd made, based on one of his essays, entitled Hans Blüher Story. I immediately made one of my own, a dramatisation of Chapter 2 of The Book of Jokes.



Now, it so happens that Dr Woodard and I will both exhibit artworks in Vienna next week in a group show called Verausgabungssymposium ("Expenditure Symposium"), held at Contemporary Concerns (COCO) Gallery. Curated by Christian Kobald and Severin Dünser, the show is about waste. My piece, intended to be displayed on an electronic signboard, is called The Facebook Proverbs. For a while now, I've been using my Facebook page's status updates as a place to put proverbs. By re-cycling these "deep tweets" as an artwork (in a medium pioneered by people like Jenny Holzer and Claude Closky) I want to embody the logic of an old proverb: "Waste not, want not!"

So my second text-to-movie effort is a film of The Facebook Proverbs as -- and not as -- they'll be appearing in Vienna.

What a week! Strep throat, broken website, a commission that took like eighty days (in one week!) to complete, jeepers.

Well it can only mean one thing.


It's quick comics time again, and done by request as is custom (it's about the only time I formally take requests anymore and only on livejournal, you are my special little guys!), so ante up all yous

edit!

Whoa I should mention, I think some people have the idea that I will do all the requests! There are always way too many, that is impossible, I just do some. But I read them all, and some of them will be turned into bigger comics, you never know.

What a day to decide to sleep in!

Hasbro brings Micronauts back:
http://toynewsi.com/news.php?catid=278&itemid=15055

JJ Abrams in talks for Micronauts movie:
http://www.superherohype.com/news.php?id=8812

More thoughts and such on this soon. I will try to keep the blog updated with news as it comes in, of course. What do you think of this sudden news?

Hausu, directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi in 1977, is perhaps the most visually exuberant film I've ever seen. The comedy-horror "watch-'em-die" flick was his first feature after a career in TV advertising; according to the film's Wikipedia page Obayashi got the idea from his 7 year-old daughter. It certainly looks like it; the film has a hyperactive pace, saturated colours, unrealistic situations taken to the extreme, storybook backdrops, and absurdly inventive cinematic devices. It's a genre film which uses the strictness of formula to allow itself a wildness of technique which is really quite extraordinary.



I discovered Hausu this Halloween just by typing "Japanese horror film" into YouTube. The clips there were enough to send me to Veoh to download the whole film (for that you need to install the Veoh player, which is free). I was surprised I hadn't heard of the film, but apparently it's been unavailable for a while on DVD and is only now being shown theatrically in the US, in places like the BAM Cinematek, with a view to appearing on DVD shortly via Janus Films. (Sorry, Janus, you probably didn't want people to know it was available on Veoh, did you?)



Generally speaking, I'm not terribly interested in genre films, in OTT horror, in 70s watch-'em-die exploito-formula flicks, in Tarantino Asian fleapit raves (not sure if he's raved about this one, but it wouldn't surprise me) and so on. I could talk about the sweet-sour contrast between the first half of the film and the second, or I could tell you the film's plot and describe how the seven teenage girls are killed one by one via a possessed house and a "seven deadly sins" structure which sees each of them offed in a way appropriate to the virtue or vice which defines their stereotypically flattened characters. Talented musician Melody is swallowed by the piano, pretty Oshare by a mirror, Kung-Fu is felled in a kung-fu fight with a witch, and there are similarly far-fetched deaths for Fantasy, Prof, Mac, and Sweet (which one drowns naked in a rising tide of cat's blood when she falls off a tatami raft? I lost track; they all sound the same when they scream).



But recounting the ludicrous plot would be a waste of time. What's really compelling about this film is all on the formal level, and it's all about excess, exuberance, license and invention. Within the first few minutes the director establishes that he can and will do anything to tell his story. He'll overlap two different musical pieces on the soundtrack, shoot a scene, Cassavetes-like, through a glass door, freeze the frame, billow a silk scarf in a wind machine, zoom suddenly down to a telescopic detail, blackening the rest of the screen, insert an animation, spin the picture upside down, use absurdly unrealistic (and gorgeously beautiful) painted backdrops featuring towering cumulo-nimbus clouds, insert a musical number... And that's even before the inventive murders begin. Here, have a look for yourself:





The sheer absurdity and excess of the film would irritate if it weren't so beautiful and charming, with a gorgeous musical score and seductive Wizard-of-Oz-like colours. It isn't just that Obayashi throws in every cinematic device he can think of, but that he makes them work so well. His next films (Drifting Classroom, Exchange Students and The Girl Who Conquered Time) were apparently quite similar; I'll be seeking them out, interested to see whether he burned out quickly or continued, on a purely visual level, to be as inventive as he was in Hausu.



To my mind -- in this film, at least -- Nobuhiko Obayashi is much better than the over-hyped Dario Argento.

друзья, у кого есть опыт общения с патронажными службами?
Озаботились поиском сиделки для старенького родителя, в интернете - миллион служб, каждая - с самыми внимательными, опытными и заботливыми сотрудниками. Если кто-то пользовался услугами - поделитесь опытом.

Опубликовано с мобильного портала www.ljmob.ru

Yes, I'm still alive. I'm actually working on something very special for Rockettubes and have some new plans ramping up, but with other things going on offline, I've been holding off updates until I have some of those special things fully ready to be announced. In the meantime, keep an eye on my Flickr account and you'll probably see some more content there soon in the interim.

Also, as you can see above, I've started toying with Spore again, and I have created a "Sporecast" there that is focused on Micronaut/Microman-inspired creations by myself and others. As of this writing, we have over 30 entries, and I'm going through the toy catalog bit by bit. The Hornetroid creature is my personal favorite creation so far. I'm playing with the creation tools so far much more than the game itself, though I look forward to playing a game in a universe populated with Micronaut-themed creations (among others--lots of fun Macross and Gundam stuff too!).

Do you play or have you played Spore? My user ID is rockettubes and the Sporecast is called "The Microverse" if you would like to friend me or subscribe. If you want to contribute any Micro-themed creations to the 'cast, let me know! Have you created any other Micronaut/man-themed characters or mods in other games?

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.

-T.S. Eliot